Stele of the Vultures

Stele of the Vultures
The stele in the Louvre Museum (front and back)
Material	Limestone
Size	height: 1.80 metres (5 ft 11 in) width: 1.30 metres (4 ft 3 in) thickness: 0.11 metres (4.3 in)
Writing	Sumerian cuneiform
Created	Early Dynastic III period (2600–2350 BC)
Discovered	Tello, Iraq
Present location	Musée du Louvre, Paris
Identification	AO 16 IO9, AO 50, AO 2246, AO 2348
Registration	CDLI P222399

The Stele of the Vultures is a monument from the Early Dynastic IIIb period (2600–2350 BC) in Mesopotamia celebrating a victory of the city-state of Lagash over its neighbour Umma. It shows various battle and religious scenes and is named after the vultures that can be seen in one of these scenes. The stele was originally carved out of a single slab of limestone, but only seven fragments are known to have survived up to the present day. The fragments were found at Tello (ancient Girsu) in southern Iraq in the late 19th century and are now on display in the Louvre. The stele was erected as a monument to the victory of king Eannatum of Lagash over Ush, king of Umma.^[1][2] It is the earliest known war monument.^[3]